Antonio Estepanian, BJJ brown belt and other spurious claims.

Antonio Estepanian recently came to the attention of the Bjj community in England due to a guy who was interested in training with him asking a well known brown belt if he knew him/was legit etc. After posting on the UK Bjj facebook group it appeared no-one had heard of him and that as he was claiming he was a brown belt under Rickson its a bit of a big deal, his brown belt claim is in the process of being investigated by others but he claims a whole load of stuff in a few martial arts as follows.

I Have copied and pasted some stuff from guildfordpredatorz and guildfordmartialarts
websites, I'm not allowed to post links.

We have also recently welcomed on board a new coach, Antonio Estepanian, who has been training in Martial Arts for 34 years and holds a 4th Dan in Taekwondo, a Black Belt in Ju-Jitsu, a Brown Belt in Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, has trained many years in Boxing and Muay Thai and holds a level 3 in Strength and Conditioning. He is a veteran of over 160 fights and was also part of the US Olympic Taekwondo Squad.

PROFILE:Antonio has 34 years experience in Martial Arts and Fitness, working in various prestigious gyms and Martial Arts Academies across the United States. He entered into the Martial Arts arena at an early age, enabling him to achieve winning over 30 National Open Tournaments in full contact forms and point fighting. His continual goal is to pass on his skills and to continue developing cross training as a balanced form of art and to maintain the highest level of fitness.COMPETITION HISTORY:King of the Cage full contact fighting, World Tae Kwon Do Championships, Open Martial Arts Tournament, Ed Parkers Nationals, Open Martial Arts Tournament, United States Open Jujitsu Championship, Pan American Jujitsu Championships.

"Antonio Estepanian will be taking these classes. He spent 12 months training in Thailand and even more time in the US just on Thai Boxing. He has competed 23 times in Muay Thai, with a record of 22-1. He trained for 6 years with Royse and Ricshon Gracie in the US, obtaining his Brown Belt, fighting around 30 times, including at the Pan American games and at the US Open

Can anybody credit/discredit any of the above? basic google searches seem to be drawing a bit of a blank.

Nobody, I have less than five posts and Im curious to find if any other of his claims are B.S. apart from the bjj brown belt, I was hoping somebody might recognise his name as he claims he was in the U.S. olympic squad for TKD. If hes lying about any of the above then he is possibly not a bjj brown belt under "Ricshon"

Well it claims he fought in the pan ams and worlds if he ever placed they would have a record of it. I highly doubt it as I've searched his name in connection to bjj and it's highly unlikely you would get to brown belt and compete at those levels without some video or record of it.

It's simple enough to find out if he has a brown belt under Rickson, just shoot them an email.

A chap called Alister Fulton emailed some people and summarised the responses on a facebook thread.

2 answers so far...1st from Allan Manganello, long-time Rickson student (and close friend of the late Rockson) says he's never heard of him. "Definitely no" from Henry Akins (Rickson BB and former instructor at Rickson's academy). Still waiting to hear from Chris Saunders (one of 2 Rickson BBs in the "Dirty Dozen"

Chris Saunders hasn't heard of him either

Another member of the facebook group has emailed the martial arts school in guildford directly and was told he trained with Rickson in Torrence in the 90's, I have not seen any of these emails though, nor have they been made public to my knowledge.